001Okay, we're good. Okay, we're going to call this meeting to order. We're going to start with Pledge of Allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, this meeting has been properly posted in all the normal posting places and I'll make a motion to approve the agenda with taking out the donations out of the uh consent agenda. Make a motion to approve it. >> I I made the motion. >> He made the motion. Just looking for a second. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion, a second. Any discussion? And all in favor say I. >> I. Same sign. Passed. We are now on to the community forum. We're good.
002>> Good. Okay. Then we are on to uh we do not have a student showcase and so we are to uh consent >> consent agenda items. I move we approve the consent agenda items. >> Second. >> We have a second. Any discussion? >> All in favor then say I. >> I. >> All the same sign. Motion's carried. >> Okay. We will go on to uh >> Do you want to approve the donations now or we? >> Well, let's do the donations. >> Do the donations now. So, um, a a big thank you to, uh, the Lake Country School Band booster club who, uh, has put out some band grants for local, uh, mun local school districts. And Mr. Jup, our band teacher, applied for some, uh, acoustical equipment that he's very excited to have. Um,
003so much so that, uh, he has he's ready and he's already planning to use it on Wednesday. Little plug that we've got a band concert on Wednesday and he's ready for that to be utilized. So, a huge thank you to the Lake Country School Band booster club. This is truly because Lake Country School no longer has a band program and they did raise some money there and they want to give it back to continue to have other programs flourish. So, uh in the uh board packet you'll see a little bit more information on what it is that Mr. Jup has asked for and a little bit of information on the LCS band booster club, too. So, just looking for a motion to approve the donation of the acoustical equipment as presented by the Lake Country
004School Band booster club. Make a motion to approve it. >> Second. >> We got a motion. We have second. Any discussion? And all in favor then say I. >> I. Both. Same sign. Motion's carried. We're on to the delegations to be heard. >> Nope. >> No delegations. >> Well, time. It's a beautiful day. >> We're on to the district administrators report. >> Yeah. So, uh again, just a huge thank you uh this evening to all of our coaches, co-curricular activities, volunteers who make all of the extra things go in our school district. So, you'll see a ton of names in there. And again, it does take truly a village to raise all of our kiddos here in the community. And a huge thank you to those parents and volunteers and staff members who make that
005real. Whether it's through basketball, volleyball to theater, to spelling be to DECA to NJHS, regardless. I mean, there's just a ton of stuff that happens here and we're so grateful for the uh the talents that people are willing to share. So, just a huge thank you to all of our folks who make this just a wonderful place. So, that's just wanted to really highlight those guys today. All right. Um, also just wanted to mention too, you'll continue to see more information from the how the school district is going to be celebrating America 250. So, uh, again, I did push something out a little bit here earlier this evening. Uh, we've got a special dressup day happening on Thursday, red, white, and blue. And then you'll see us in the parade. Big thank you to uh
006Jordan who is the leader of that for our staff. But for our America 250, a huge thank you to Maria, Mary Iwansky, and Jim Benny for those folks really putting their heads together and making some really unique things. So we'll continue to push things out whether through social media, through our announcements, or through some of our community education, too, as well. So more to come on that, but we're really excited about some of the opportunities we're going to be bringing. uh we were going to have some things that our whole community can partner with as well as they can drop things off if they'd like either here at the school district or at village hall. So, uh we're excited to kind of bring that to our community. Hopefully, we have a lot of participation. So,
007um for open records requests, the typical, you know, a lot of uh you know, national ones or statewide ones, nothing uh nothing big at all. And we've already talked about our donations. So, that's what I got. Do we have something from our principles? >> Uh, nope. I don't think so. Not this evening. >> Then we're on to committee reports. Finance committee. >> Sure. The finance committee. Again, you'll see the budget presentation here in a second. Uh, again, we won't don't need to belabor that point right now. And then also though, we will be asking the board to approve a preliminary budget. Uh, so again, very preliminary. have to emphasize it will change but ultimately asking the board to approve a budget for the 2627 school year because July 1 means we're going to have to
008start spending because that's when our fiscal year uh begins. So uh more to come on that about what that all means but uh we'll talk about that a little later. And then also the other part for the finance committee was our quarterly updates. Again you'll see in the board packet everything is looking really good. uh you've got a three-year look back for each of the quarters there and quarter three is looking no different than it has been really truly the last couple years. So whether that be on the revenue or the expendited side, um I will be finalizing and and resubmitting final numbers for this past year's budget um into the DPI portal uh this upcoming week to make sure that our state aid estimate is as accurate as possible. So, um, in the past
009several years, we've been kind of shocked a little bit at some of the decrease in state aid. So, one of the strategies is to really update your budget as late as possible so they truly understand uh where all the dollars have been spent and what's our current dollar per pupil and what we anticipate. So, um, so that'll be happening to a little bit later, but from the finance st standpoint, we're looking really good. In our report from you, they talked about all the volunteers. >> You want to mention that or >> Yeah. >> Or did you mention that? >> We did. Yeah. Volunteers. Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, on to policy and personnel. Um again policy and personnel again you'll see a first draft of two uh reports and policies that were created. The first
010one is 528.1 that is a policy in response to act 89 which is a new state law around basically student grooming. So what you see is a brand new policy from WSB. It meets the legal requirements of what is required by the state for us to have a policy. This is basically regarding student communications and this is not just for employed staff. This is for staff and volunteers for anyone who is doing work on behalf of the district. So what you see is again a WB policy. The important part of that is is the district will have to partner with either WSB or DPI to create a training that highlights all the expectations of staff communications. So, uh, again, whether you're a coach, a teacher, a custodian, regardless, uh, you will have to go through
011that training, too, as well. Again, that's just kind of a boilerplate. A little bit later in new business, you'll be able to, uh, ask any questions if you'd like as we review our first draft. Uh, the next policy that we reviewed was a revised 443.5 rule, which is around the student use of personal electronic devices, i.e. a cell phone policy, sell watches. So, what you'll see in the packet and what the committee is bringing forward is a couple tweaks to our current policy. First of all, we defined what a personal electronic device is. Anything that can communicate two ways. So, again, it's very clear in our policy what that would be. The big change here is ultimately at the intermediate school, at the primary school, they've always been prohibited. At currently at the intermediate school
012right now, we do allow students to have cell phone utilization in between passing periods. So this change would basically make it bellto and that students would have to keep them in their personal belongings from 8:50 until 4:00. So uh instead of having it be able to go between math and language arts class, they just now are going to be asked to keep them off and not being utilized. So um we're not requiring any places to put them. We are just asking them to keep it in their personal belongings out of sight. So that is the one recommendation uh for that policy moving forward. Uh again we'll have a chance to talk about that a little bit later uh as we move forward through the meeting. Um we also presented the student handbooks and the student
013handbooks basically working with Mr. Newcomer and Mr. Blessington just updating dates and the biggest thing there too would be is just updating the cell phone policy if the board wishes to change that. So again, that's pretty much the only tweaks that we're recommending there. And then finally, I would like to thank our staff who came out for our meet and confer to focus around our employee handbook changes. We have shared these employee handbook changes with our staff. uh to highlight ultimately there is a 1% incre is being recommended to have a 1% increase to employee premium share so going from basically 13.4% to 14.4% 4% and with that a corresponding reduction to cash and loo going from 5,000 to 4600. Ultimately it is the increase in premium that that is being reduced by for the
014cash and loo uh some history there. We did put a health insurance committee together made up of staff and uh we did come up with those recommendations to help share the cost in particular the increasing cost of health care. What you don't see in our handbook, however, is the uh the committee's recommendation to increase some of the district co-pays towards primary care or specialty and towards mental health. That is all topics that will be discussed in the fall as we think about our renewal working with the business healthcare group as well as Centibbo, our healthcare carrier. So, um so that is pretty much what we have for our uh I don't think I missed anything for the handbook. Oh, and then just ultimately bringing our full-time support staff into the opportunity to have their sick
015and or personal time paid out um after a certain threshold just like the rest of the teachers and the support staff do too as well. So again, we'll have an opportunity to first review all of that as we move through the meeting. Finally, we got student achievement. Again, a big thank you to Maria who uh who let us and it seemed like most of our board was here for that towards the end. Um don't need to regurgitate, but you'll see that our kids, our current sophomore class, I think it's sophomore and sophomore class is the most recent data. Um you'll see some data in there ultimately about how they did for Arrowhead. You'll see some grade distributions for freshman. Again, our kids are doing very, very well. A big thank you again to Maria who
016continues to reach out and coordinate uh K12 activities and curricular discussions with not only just with Arrowhead but the entire feeder system too as well. So a big thank you there. And then ultimately Maria also led us through professional development calendar that we'd like to propose and again that'll be going to the board for full approval in June. We also had an update on what will be being reviewed in the uh student achievement committee meetings uh coming up and then gave a little bit of a review about our 4K uh curriculum review about what has been going on. Nothing formal for 4K will be required, but again it's more of an FYI and you can kind of see all the things that have been happening uh for this program. Again, it's it's not required per
017state statute, but it's a really cool opportunity for our kids to to have a great time and get school ready too as well. So, again, a big thank you to Maria who led that committee. >> Okay, then we're on to new business. We've got the preliminary budget. >> All right. So, if the board wanted to go to the uh the audience and we'll do a quick review of our preliminary budget. All right. So tonight, what we want to do is pretty much preview the next year's upcoming budget. And I want to say it and I'm going to say it again and you'll hear it every meeting we talk about budget. Until the end of October, the budget will change. Okay? These are very very early budget assumptions. But as we start to plan for the
0182627 school year, super important for us to understand what the the challenges, what the variables are, and then ultimately asking the board to preliminarily and approve a budget so that we can start spending July 1st for our next fiscal year. Um, again, we're going to walk through a little bit of school finance, but ultimately talk about where we want to what kind of expenditures we're going to have, what kind of revenues are going to go along with that. um what are some of our goals and ultimately um what are we going to do this upcoming year with the dollars that are so graciously given to us. The big thing is is we are going to utilize our budget to ultimately meet our vision and our mission which is increase student achievement while inspiring curiosity and
019personal growth. Everything we do funnels around those three components achievement, personal growth and curiosity. Again, not just for kids, but for everybody who's involved with our operation. Fiscal responsibility is a bedrock of our strategic plan. We can't do anything without a very strong fiscal foundation. And again, we'll share what that foundation is in a little bit too as well. And then ultimately, as we all know, we need to support teaching and learning. That's what we're here for, for Maria and for Jordan, to make sure we've got the the excellent facilities and excellent opportunities for our kids and our staff to continue to learn and grow. Um, you've seen this budget timeline. This is something that was presented to the board in January when we started to talk about some very early budget assumptions. Um, but
020ultimately we're in May now and that's what we're talking about. Uh, I mentioned state aid in a little bit. July 1st, we get an estimate. When we say state aid, state aid is a part of the entire revenue limit which is ultimately what sets our budget. Talk to you about that in a second. Um, state aid has been a hot topic and most recently last week when you think about the bills that got sent forward from the governor and a couple legislators got together, um, there was significant state aid. If you want to equate state aid, state aid equals property tax relief truly. And um as we all know that did not make it to the governor's desk. So it failed out of the Senate. So we don't know. Again, there is no new money
021in that pot. Back for the 2527 bianial budget. It was approved with no new money. So the amount of money being put into schools from the state on the state equalization aid is the same in 2026 as it was in 2024. There's been no increase. So obviously the 421 school districts across the state of Wisconsin are all grabbing for that money. We'll talk a little bit about how that works. September is really the next time when we talk about our budget. That's when we have our annual meeting. Okay. The annual meeting happens after we start school. The most important thing about knowing when school starts is how many students are enrolled. Okay. Our revenue limit is controlled by the number of students over a three-year rolling in. And then finally in October is that highlighted
022day that we finally figure out exactly what our student count is. How much state aid we are going to get. What is our property values which again is a significant thing. Then ultimately we certify a levy which is the revenue limit minus state aid which is ultimately what is the responsibility of our taxpayers. We'll talk all about that. Okay. The annual meeting is a recommendation to the board on what they believe again the community whoever everybody's welcome. It's a recommendation to the board on what to do with the le. So end of October we'll set our budget. We've got a lot of time since then. Some factors though that we know about. First one is is we know that in the last bianial budget, Governor Ivers again very controversially set in $325 increase per pupil
023for the next 400 years. Okay. So we know next year that our revenue limit is going to increase by $325. It is going to go from 11,650 to 11,975. That is what we're putting into our revenue limit calculation. Again, no new state aid. No new state aid at this point. We are assuming that 10 students move into the district. Okay, that's important in a little bit. We are assuming salary increases. Again, the board has has met several times later this evening. We're going to be talking about support staff. Approximately a 2.63% districtwide percent increase. Health insurance. Again, if you've heard us talk anything about finances, health insurance is probably our biggest question mark just like no other any other business. It's anticipated a 15% increase. See how we do there. Transportation increase that is a
024very large increase and there's been a lot of conversations amongst the consortium. We are part of the consortium with the Arrowhead theater schools. The way things should we are looking at approximately a 17% increase. that is without taking a look at what is happening to gas and diesel prices right now. So I'd have to move that a little bit. Supplies purchase services, other insurance increases, etc., etc. Uh when we think about price of materials and things, our our property casual insurance went up approximately $9,000 strictly just to keep up with inflationary prices of building materials. When we think about making sure we're covered from a catastrophic event, we had to move our square footage from $350 a square foot to 400. So again, we just want to make sure that we are prepared just in
025case anything happens. And then the other factors like we don't know again we're assuming 10 kids, but what do we know about what if there's more? What if there's less? What about open enrollment? A lot of discussion around the air community around open enrollment. How does that affect us? We really don't know. All right. What kind of projects are we looking at? Um Maria highlighted this in her presentation earlier. K8 science adoption, mer values work potentially depending on what happens later today. And we've got four pay 4K curricular work that's going to focus around writing this upcoming year. Um we have an opportunity to continue to work on our facility. We've got three sets of new doors and ultimately that would be great if we can complete the north side of our intermediate school fiber
026optic replacement that the board has already approved. We continue to bolster our reading and math interventions as well as our special education curriculums. And as Maria highlighted before, we're looking at a K12 or I'm sorry, a K8 social studies review. Shouldn't be too heavy, which is good good to hear from uh a standard standpoint as well as a budgetary standpoint. And then we got the mer values curricular adoption. We're not quite sure we have dollars set aside for all of that though, but we're prepared for those implementations as we think about it. Okay, I've talked about this revenue limit thing. School finance 101. We are driven by number of students. They take the number of students over a three-year rolling average. Okay? Now, if you've been following us the past several years, we've been getting
027larger and larger and larger every year, which means we are going to replace a little number with a larger number on our revenue limit. That equals approximately an estimated 16 FTE. When you think about 16 FTE, that's 16 students multiplied by our revenue limit of just under $12,000. That's our new money. We're going to get some new money. We are a little bit different than some of the other school districts around us. We are in a unique situation right now that we continue to grow a little bit. Instead of declining enrollment, we continue to be steady to slightly increase. As we know, eventually we're going to we're going to level up. which is kind of where you want is that it's very predictable. So, we've got our three-year rolling average cost per pupil. I won't
028quiz you. It's $11,975. Onetime reoccurring exemptions. Ultimately, you've got some charter. You've got some voucher programming in there. Ongoing exemptions, we don't have any ongoing exemptions because we're not declining enrollment. That's going to equal your revenue limit authority. Ultimately, when we put these all in, and you'll see in your packet for the board members, I even printed it in color. Thank you, Mr. Benny. I ran out of color. Um, that is the fancy formula that the state of Wisconsin uses to determine how much money school districts can spend and what part is the what part is the levy, the taxpayers, and what part is state aid. Talk about that in a second about what we anticipate. So ultimately the district is looking at a little over $11 million for our revenue limit authority. State aid
029very preliminary again no new money. We also are looked at if you look around we are growing especially in property value. We've got new subdivisions going up. So, our net new construction continues to be about oh four to 5% of our increased property value. Okay. Again, a very unique thing for our school district. Ultimately, it brings more dollars in to spread the levy out which affects our mill rate. Talk about that in a second. However, with high property value comes lower state gain. The way the formula works is the higher property value you have, the state looks at that and says you have the more you have higher property which means you must have the ability to pay more for schools. Use the example by us and you'll see us we're going to be approximately
03034% aided by the state swallow school district 0% state aid. When you think of northern Wisconsin and some of the lakes, all the lakes that are up there, zero state aid because they've got a lot of property and not a lot of kids. We have a lot of property and medium amount of kids, which means we continue to get state aid. So, we are looking though, however, again, I want to be conservative, always want to be as conservative as possible at almost a $200,000 decrease in state aid. Okay, that kind of tracks a little bit about what we've been doing the last several years. Okay, so this year we're anticipating about 200,000 less or 185 in particular because that's kind of where we're trending. We are hopeful that maybe the state uh legislators out of
031Madison and the governor can continue to work together. Hence, they can increase that state aid pot. Hopefully, we can get a little bit more which softens the levy. So revenue limit minus state aid. Remember we have the amount of money we can spend minus what the state's going to give us. Our fund 10 tax levy that we would be asking our property taxpayers for is almost $6.7 million. That is up approximately $600,000. People are going to say, Ron, why is the levy going up? Remember, $325 per pupil. All goes to the taxpayers because there was no new state aid. That's where the majority of it is going. We're increasing in enrollment. Multiply that number by 325 plus the additional 16 kids minus state aid and you got yourself about a $600,000 heavy levy. Ultimately, what
032I want to highlight is the mill rate. That's what people really want to care about right now. Again, very preliminary. We're looking at a mill rate of $3.39 per thousand. We don't know what the property values are coming in. We know that the village of Lisbon just got reassessed, so that's going to affect it. We know we have more net new construction. That's going to affect that. And also, and Dean I think highlighted this at our finance committee meeting, not all municipalities are treated equally. They all have different levels of property property equalization values and some local municipalities take on more of the burden compared to the others. But right now we are looking at a 3.39% levy and that is with a or $3.39 mill rate should say that with a 10% increase in
033property value. We don't know any of these factors yet. Property comes in October 1st. State aid comes in October 15th. And the number of pupils happen on the third Friday count in September. Right around September 15th, September 18th somewhere around there. So, lots of variables. Where are we going to be getting all of our money from? With everything we get, we're looking at approximately $13 million. But Ron, you said that we were only going to have $1.2 million. We have other state revenues. Those come in forms of categorical aid, $742 per pupil. We come in the form of open enrollment dollars. Students who open enroll in, we get those. We get some idea flow through special education funds that reimburse us back too as well which is another big hot top in the state of
034Wisconsin. So and then we get some local revenue. So you can see that we are anticipating out of the entire pot state is right around 34 tax levy 51 and change and then the rest comes in the form of others for that. I am very pleased to say that we have a balanced budget. So you saw the revenues from an expenditure standpoint. Again, we are very similar to many school districts where you have benefits and salaries and fund 27. Basically the transfer for special education make up about 74 75% of our budget is to salaries and benefits. We are a front-facing people organization. That is where we put our money into children into staff. Then obvious obviously we're going to have some open enrollment out dollars. But please note this is the biggest thing. We
035have very little and ultimately when we think about curriculum and instruction we only have about 10% of our budget devoted to teaching and learning. So we don't have a lot of discretionary dollars. So when we talk to when Maria talks about being really taking a look at making sure we're utilizing and doing the right stuff and really being critical, we want to make sure that we're right when we start purchasing new curriculums, new instruction, professional development and into our developing our people. So that's where our expenditures go for the most part. State of the budget we are balanced Money in equals money out. We're feeling really, really good. All facility projects are in the budget. Everything we want to do facilitywise, and we don't have a huge list this year because last year we did
036our we did our asphalt. We're doing a roof coming up in June. We just put five new sets of doors in. Thank you, school board. So, we've really been taking care of our facilities. Really have been doing great work. proposed $100,000 into fund 41. That is a facilityonly fund that has to be levied at the annual meeting. That's the only thing that happens at the annual meeting that sticks. So out of our budget dollars, out of the revenue limit, we would like to put $100,000 aside for facilities for future facilities. And ultimately, we have contingencies for stat. we do whether that would be for uh special education whether it be for a pop in a class we really feel strongly though we've got a lot of wiggle room in our class sizes and we're feeling
037really really good our fund balance again this is critical because ultimately we make a lot of money on our investments which is great but this allows us not to short-term borrow and right now as we know borrowing money is very expensive very expensive Instead of us borrowing money, we're making money. We truly are. We almost earned $150,000 in interest last year. It's two teachers just for having great cash flow. Now, understand school finance, we'll get into how we're funded later at a different time, but understand people pay don't pay their property taxes until when? December and January. And you saw that we're 51% aided by property taxes. So we get deposits throughout our year about three to four times. That's it. So we've got to manage that. We have to cash flow that. This year
038we did an analysis of our cash flow and said, "Ron, we think we can do some better on investments." We were able to swirl away to almost $700,000 in CDs, additional CD money because we don't need it for cash flow. Locked in for one to two years at 4%. The opportunity there is still liquidity. still liquidity if we ever would need it. The other piece there that I think is super important from a community standpoint, again, thank you very, very much for our school board for supporting fund 146 and fund 141. That is an investment into our facilities. It is there. Our facilities are the most precious thing outside of our children and our staff and our people, but the most, you know, expensive capital thing we have. We want to make sure it's well
039taken care of. And we have almost $1.9 million right now set aside for our facilities. We have a very strong financial base, very very strong financial base due to our uh our our school board supporting a lot of our initiatives to making sure that this is great. So any questions? Everything is preliminary. It's all going to change. But any questions? You've heard it all before. This deep. Thank you. I Thank you. Okay. Now we're on to B, the adoption of the 2627 proposed budget. >> Yeah. So in your packet of information is a preliminary budget. Again, this is in the the budget format that would then basically get published during the annual meeting. This will be updated obviously ahead of that because we'll know some new numbers. But ultimately what you see there is a
040preliminary budget. So um ultimately though this is a this is an action item. I'm really sorry. I think I did put Did I only put discussion? >> All right. Well, we'll have to make action on it in June then. >> What do you mean? >> So, I think I only put discussion. >> No, it's the presentation is at Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I was looking at the wrong budget like that. >> Thank you. Sorry about that. So, again, just looking for a motion to approve the proposed preliminary 2026 27 budget as presented. >> Make a motion to approve the budget. >> I'll second. Hey, we have a motion, a second. There any discussion? No. Hearing no discussion. All in favor then say I. >> I. >> Oppos same. Sign. Motion carried. >> Thank you very
041much. >> Okay, we've got the final review of the Merin values report. Yep. So this would be the second review. Um Maria presented the the full report uh and the memo is in the um in the packet. So just looking for a motion to approve the merin values committee report which includes the recommendations as presented. >> Make a motion to approve the mer values report. >> I'll second. Okay, we have a motion and a second discussion, questions, concerns. >> Have we had anyone question that at all? >> No. >> Okay, I have not. Oh, we will write back as to any of their other particular material. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Anything else? And all in favor say I. I I >> oppose. Same sign. Motion's carried. >> We got
042the first review of the 4K curriculum report. >> Yeah. And this is kind of the only review. I'm sorry. It was from the student achievement report. This is just basically highlighting to see if there was any questions. uh as Maria highlighted there really is no recommendations that are being because it continues to uh develop and uh Maria and her team uh continue to just implement and have been learning along the way too as well. So just an opportunity to ask any specific questions of Maria at this time. Okay, is there any discussion? Okay, then we're on to the first draft. Review of the new policy 528.1 employee student communications. Again, this is our first draft. Uh just looking for again if there is feedback, not this evening, but feel free to connect with either myself,
043Amanda, or Patrick if there's any questions about 528.1. Again, this is very boilerplate WB. If something does change, again, this is a brand new act with Act 89, but a brand new policy. If something does change within WSB's recommendations, ultimately I would bring that to the board's attention as well as the committee's team. >> Any discussion? >> Just quick question. Have you, Bob and Steve, set any parameters on what would happen for you guys to say, "Okay, they're banned all day." >> Oh, for cell phones. We'll get to that in a second. Okay. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Perfect. >> Then we're on to uh first draft review of changes to policy 443.5R student use of personal electronic devices. >> Sure. So Patrick, the question was has there been any discussion about if we wanted
044to ban them permanently? You mean from what would be the uh merits for if if you know when you get to the point where we have to ban it, what what steps are going to be taken and what what has to happen? >> Well, right now this would be a ban on cell phones between 8:50 and 4:00 at Merton Intermediate School. I think your question might be is is are you referring to if we're going to have something different about where the kids check in and check out, check in and check out. Um again, Steve, do you want to comment on that or >> Yeah, I think team still discuss we probably start there we don't really want to manage other kids even though burns in so doesn't necessarily mean you think one we're going
045to say you know they're off they're in your lock the day communication parents they're not going to be checking their phone the day so I was able to message you know honestly you know just one of your pieces to each know if one is in the office you don't pick it up after school your parents have to pick it up it's like you know kind of what is step one what's step two we find an issue I you know we've already not really I mean already talking to teachers they don't find it an issue right >> during class time and maybe even heard that they appreciate for the most part, >> right? >> But it's a little bit of other times where some of the big change and it's even change for our parents to
046message that they're not on they're going to pay. So you really have to message the school. Um so we don't want to jump to like because there's a lot of logistics that go with like collecting things. So are you collecting first hour? What happens when the kids late? What happens at the end of the day? You got to go out and chaos. Go get your phones at the end. Bring them to the 10th hour. what happens if there's like you can see all kinds of logistical places for that. So, um, you know, we'll hopefully we can manage through messaging, you know, disciplinary action. I've seen kids don't like their phones being gone. Um, but it's also going to be messaging at home like it is a little bit different. It's state law. So, they're used
047to being able to say, "Hey, check. I'm let you know arrival plans." >> So, I think there's more messaging that >> Yeah. We don't we Katie even mentioned you know we don't want the teachers being sell cops. >> Yeah. You know >> they're not there to do that. They're there to teach. So it's like >> so almost when it becomes so unmanageable as a group then I think we >> Yeah because hopefully through individual convers I mean we don't want to do this blanket just because we've got one or two kids who are we're not going to throw the entire blanket over the staff. So >> but uh more to come on that. we want to start this way to be less intrusive. Uh but again, I it was nice to hear we had some
048staff come out and uh first of all, thank Amanda and Patrick for taking the time to have the meet and confer sessions, but the first thing she said is they appreciate the additional step to the cell phones. So, I think our staff really does appreciate that too as well. >> And then just a question just to clarify for because I've had a couple community members come up and ask about the eye watches. So, are they allowed to wear them in school even if they're set on a certain mode? >> Again, we're not going to be the watch police. It's very difficult for us because some of them are set because well, it's off. Yeah. It's >> again, we're going to probably have to go through some discretion. Very much so. I mean, if you see
049this then Yeah. Yeah. >> So, again, we would attack those very similar and if we see somebody doing it, say, "Hey, please take it off and put it in your belonging." >> Um, >> but as of now, they can still wear them. They just have to be >> cannot be utilized. >> And if we see it as a distraction, it'll be an individual conversation. Say, "Hey, Mr. Patrick, time to put it away." >> Sure. >> Y >> it's a primary school. I think we take a little bit different of approach. Bob kind of or again work with families. >> Yeah. Right. >> Hasn't been an issue. Uh Bob's very Well, it's very clear we don't allow it. And uh again, Bob has had to work with, you know, some upset people. >> Sure. >> Truly.
050>> And uh can we work through it? And this is this really gives us the backing about what we're looking for. >> Y again feel free to continue to if there is again I haven't heard anything Steve I don't I heard much but again I know obviously Amanda's >> mouth >> working around and in your settings a little bit different than than mine that's for sure. So but again if you have any feedback as a committee feel free to send it our way. Okay. Then we're on the first review of the 26 27 27 employee handbook revisions. >> Yep. So you'll see all of uh the changes that are in the in the packet there. Uh they were highlighted, you know, a little bit earlier in the meeting. Uh but again, those would be the
051highlighted ones. And again, if people have any questions, they can continue to discuss more. Just my one question is just the insurance that are employee handbook and the student handbook both adhere to state and federal guidelines. >> Yes, we make sure that's in there too. Yep. Exactly. That will be subservient to all federal and state guidelines uh throughout if anything's ever missed. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Okay. Then uh first review of the 26 27 student handbook revisions. >> Yep. Again, we've talked a lot about the cell phone policy or personal electronic device, and then we're just updating uh some some dates and stuff. So, pretty straightforward. >> Okay. Then we're on to approve the 26 27 letters of appointments. >> Yep. So, again, you'll see our uh our recommendations. Again, this has been brought
052through close sessions uh with the board uh prior to this. And again, you'll see the spreadsheet with uh basically representing approximately a 2.6 63% increase. Uh but ultimately the administration is uh recommending the board make a motion to approve the 2627 letters of appointment as presented. >> I'll make a motion to approve the letters of appointment. >> I'll second. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Ron, have you received any feedback on that? >> Um, formally to myself, no. >> Okay. >> Not nothing that has come directly to me. >> Okay. >> Just around. >> Okay. Any other discussion? Well, then all in favor of approving the 2627 letters of appointment that have been presented to us say I. >> I. I. >> Opposed, same sign. Motions carried. We're on to
053open enrollment student approvals and wait lists. So, uh, again, every year we are required by the state of Wisconsin per open enrollment statutes to either approve or deny all the applications in and the applications out. Uh, the the annual open enrollment window for the board or for the districts are February 2nd to right around April 30th, right around there. Um what you have in front here is basically um the number of applications that we have had uh throughout either through the the open enrollment in and the open enrollment out as well. So um we will need again basically and you'll see that we did approve unlimited seats. uh there isn't any of the number of seats here that would even remotely closely tip us into anything that we would say even close to a adding
054a section at all. So because uh they're pretty modest numbers certainly there too. So uh this evening the board has two motions we would are recommending to make that the state of Wisconsin requires us is one is in and then the other one is the o the students who are open enrolling out. Uh we'll handle the open enrollment in first and then I'll talk about the out in a second. So, uh, the administration is recommending the board make a motion to approve all open enrollment applications and alternate open enrollment applications. That is anything that happens outside of the window for non-incoming students with an expulsion order or an IEP more than speech only. And that's basically what is presented here. I make a motion to approve. Second. Okay, we have a motion, a second. Any
055discussion? And all in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppos same sign. >> Motion's carried. >> Thank you. Uh the second piece is is the board is required to uh to approve the out applications. Um it's kind of a formality. There isn't any reason why the the board would or the administration has that would support denying any of these uh applications out. Uh frankly we have tried before through even the alternate open enrollment process and the DPI has said no. So um as you can see we had 18 students apply out. We have four students who are currently attending us. So um out of those 18 some of them are 4kers but uh some of them also are students who have moved into the district who are choosing to stay at their current elementary or
056middle school. So, uh, this has been a common theme over the last several years, which has kind of driven our our open enrollment numbers significantly who are going out and the dollars going out up. Um, these students do apply to our uh, revenue limit on a three-year rolling average. The 14 of them apply, again, you divide that by three and we only get approximately five FTE out of it. So, it is probably one of the biggest financial challenges we have because it's not a one for one. When we send $11,000 out to an outgoing school district, we only really truly get right around $3,300 for we'll even use easy numbers 4,000. So, it puts us under, but there's nothing we can do about that. So, we do reach out to these families and say, "Hey,
057we'd love to uh entertain a conversation, a tour if they haven't been here, or just uh some feedback on how we can get better if in fact something that we can do." >> Do we have any kind of um what do I say? Um is there kind of a a population that leaves for a specific reason? like say they're leaving for uh some kind of curriculum that we don't offer or some kind of say religious situation or >> if there's a religious situation we wouldn't know about it. So because if you want to go to either a voucher school, a charter school, a private school, they again there's that's not part of those numbers. Um we do reach out uh last year's biggest reason I would say was socially um you know that's where their
058friend group was or uh but again the feedback we and some people don't respond to phone calls, emails and stuff like that too as well. Sometimes it's difficult but um the last several years it's truly just been you know hey just want see a better fit from a standpoint of uh socially or they want a smaller environment um as well. But uh it's kind of all over the board. No, no real themes. Not like it was early in my career here where it was start and end time with Skillus. >> Do you see with Arrowhead decreasing their open enrollment a greater number of people from our district who won't have their children opportunity to go to Arrowhead leaving as well? That's the big concern. That's the concern. Again, we've had multiple families. Uh talk to
059us about what that means. Uh younger, right? Because Arrowhead has said sixth, seventh, current sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. And again, what I've been told is their siblings too as well. If there's a lower one, uh we'll gain automatic admittance. Again, this is only for students who are coming to non Arrowhead schools, right? Because we get some from North Lake, Richmond, Swallow, they get some of ours. we're talking about Pewwaukee, Richfield, uh you know, Sussex, Sussex, Hartford, things like that. Um that'll be the big question mark. Uh I know later this week, I do believe Arrowheads board meeting is later this week or later in the month for sure. Uh and again, they'll have the same opportunity that we have right now to approve um open enrollment seats. So again, I think that will be
060telling if they want to stay with that or if they want to do something different. So, >> yeah, >> we'll see. But again, that's probably the biggest unknown in enrollment because if we lose 10 open enrollment families who have been here, let's say 10, that's $120,000. >> Yeah, I know Katie, the PTO president to her fifth grader and they're opening here and they're not going to be able to go >> underneath the current status. >> Yep. Mhm. So, we're just telling parents to hang in there and you never know what's going to happen, but we don't really know what's going to happen. Do we think it affects these numbers? It's hard to say. Uh because open enrollment has kind of shrunk down a little bit coming in, but but again, we'll continue to reach out
061to to folks and and again, we will accept alternate open enrollments too as well. >> Thank you. >> Do we have any kids that do tuition waivers? Yeah. Um, we'll do a tuition waiver through a moving situation if we need to through a residence. Typically, we like to do the alternate open enrollment. Uh, again, every situation is a little bit unique whether they're going to be in before the third Friday count or even before the second Friday count. Um, very unique. And what we do is we take a look at a situation. If we have a question, we call DPI and say, "What's the easiest way for this family to get here?" So, yeah, >> with the alternate open enrollment situation being what it is, tuition waiverss aren't really necessary. Um, but that's kind of
062our go-to until we get a unique situation. >> Okay. >> My memory is correct. We didn't do a motion, did we, >> no? Not for out. >> Oh. >> So, yep. Looking for a motion to approve. I'll just do that. >> Discussed it before we made We probably did that. >> The administration is recommending the board make a motion to approve all students who have applied out of the Merton Community School District. Make a motion to approve. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion, a second. I think it's been thoroughly discussed. I >> think we're good. >> Okay. All in favor then say I. >> I. Same side. Motion's carried. >> Thank you very much. We'll reach out to those families. Thank you. And a big big thank you to Katie Lefeld too who's
063our open enrollment coordinator who hustles and bustles all of this is really the point of contact. John to your point about tuition waiver alternate open enrollment. What do we do? So she's a really great conduit and uh getting really good at that. >> Okay. We've got future meeting and agenda items. >> Yep. So we've got a little bit of time until our next one. So June 29th uh you'll see a couple items there too. Ultimately second reads and final discussions there. But um that's what uh we're looking at. So >> any uh agenda items and then we'll have a quick turnaround again then for Yep. >> July. >> Correct. Yep. Quick turnaround because that was when the majority of the board could make it. Is that July 13th? It's usually late agendas in June and
064July. So >> nothing from the board for agenda items. Okay. Do we want to make our meeting for August or do we want to just delay that till the next meeting with the whole board here? I'm not sure if the whole board will be here in June. I don't know. Typically, we would be looking at the there is a August 31st or an August 24th. Later the better. The 31st is kind of pushing it a little bit um because we are required by state statute to get one in. Again, August typically isn't a severe weather day, but um the 24th is typically it would be uh basically our open houses that week. It fits well when our staff is back and a lot of our families are back too. So the 31st would be the
065day before school. Would love to get that done a little bit before that if we needed some hiring and things like that. The 24th would be ideal. 24th's good for me. >> 24th, Amanda, then it's good for me. >> I be traveling, but I should be back. >> Okay. So, we'll set the 24th. >> I'll reach out to Justin and >> for a minute too as well. Okay. And then I don't know if there's a flavor too. I know John, you've asked this before in the past to, you know, set the meeting dates. Maybe we could do that too either in July or August just so we can get all them on our calendars. Uh, I know that helps out our administrative team extremely too as well. So, >> dude, June would be nice. >>
066Yeah, if we can get them down, if we got a full board, we'll try to get those down. >> And I I think it maybe it would help the staff to coax some students to come in. It's always nice when the students come in. >> Always is. So, all right. Thank you. Did you make the motion to reading motion? >> Motion to adjourn. >> I move we adjourn. >> Answer. >> Make a motion to adjurnn. >> I think Dean did second. >> We have a motion, a second. All in favor then say I. >> I. Post. Same sign. Meetings adjourned. >> Have any shreddings?